LICENSING PROCESS
FOR BELENE NPP:
CURRENT STATUS
AND NEXT STEPS
Tinko Ganchev
Head of Department
Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
Content of the presentation
1. Introduction
2. Legal requirements on licensing and safety
assessment
3. Regulatory review of Belene NPP TD, ISAR
and PSA
4. Additional analyses and discussions of
selected safety issues
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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1. Introduction
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Main Advantages of AES-92
Design- Generation III LWR
• Provision of a “core catcher” for severe
accident cases, leading to a core melting and
reactor pressure vessel breach
• Long design operation life time: 60 provisional
years of operation
• Substantial reduction of core damage
frequency : ~10 -7/y
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Main Advantages of AES-92
Design- Generation III LWR
• Two individual completely independent
reactivity control systems
• Redundancy for all safety functions provided by
the use of both active and passive safety
systems
• Use of a special double containment, designed
to withstand a large range of internal and
external events
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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2. Legal requirements
on licensing and safety assessment
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Legislation applied to
licensing new nuclear facility
•
Primary legislation
– EU legislation, Conventions, Constitution of the Republic
of Bulgaria
– Act of the Safe Use
of Nuclear Energy (Nuclear Act)
– Energy Act
– Environment Protection Act
– Act on the Territorial Structure
•
Secondary legislation
- 22 regulations for the application of the Nuclear Act
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Nuclear Act:
Types of Authorisations
°
°
°
°
°
°
°
°
permit for site selection
order for approval of the selected site
permit for design
order for approval of the technical design
permit for construction
permit for commissioning
licence for operation
licence for decommissioning
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Main NRA regulations
applied during licensing
• Regulation for the procedure for issuing licenses and
permits for safe use of nuclear energy (2004)
• Regulation on ensuring the safety of nuclear power
plants (2004)
• Regulation on basic norms of radiation protection (2004)
• Other relevant regulations issued under the Nuclear Act
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Regulation on Ensuring the
Safety of NPPs
Design limits and safety assessment
• Acceptance criteria for the barriers;
• Radiological and other technical acceptance
criteria
• Frequency of a large radioactive release into the
environment that requires undertaking of
immediate protective measures for the
population shall not exceed
1E-6 events per NPP per year.
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Regulation on Ensuring the
Safety of NPPs:
Safety Analysis and Assessment
• Plant safety shall be analyzed using deterministic and
probabilistic methods to verify and confirm the
established design basis and the effectiveness of
defense in depth arrangement
• Postulated initiating events (PIEs) shall be also analyzed
• Computer codes, analytical methods and plant models to
be used in the safety analysis shall be verified and
validated, uncertainty of the results shall be quantified
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Safety Margins and Uncertainty
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Examples of international
safety and reliability criteria
Probabilistic Safety Criteria of European Utilities (EUR):
more restrictive than the criteria of the IAEA
EUR Probabilistic Safety Targets:
- Core damage frequency: CDF<1 E-5
- Frequency of release>limited impact (LI): 1 E-6
- Early or large release frequency (ELRF): 1 E-7
IAEA Probabilistic Safety Targets for future plants
(INSAG 3, 1999)
- CDF: 1E-5 per reactor year
- LRF: 1E-6 per reactor year
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3. Regulatory review of TD, ISAR
and PSA for Belene NPP
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Current Licensing
Status
April 2008
Application
for Design
Approval
Review
and Assessment
of Submitted
Documentation
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Main documents
subject to assessment
• Technical Design (TD)
• Interim Safety Ananalysis Report (ISAR)
• Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA)
-Amount of the technical documents submitted: > 30 000 pages
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BNRA review and assessment
process:
Internal expert opinion
• Within the BNRA frames
• According to approved program - stages,
experts, terms
Review and assessment by consultants
• ISAR – Riskaudit International (GRS & IRSN)
• Chosen technical design solutions –
EnproConsult Ltd.
• PSA - IAEA in the frame of national TC project
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Review and assessment
of the ISAR (Rev.0)
In-depth analyses of selected safety issues
by Riskaudit
1. Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) Study
2. Core-Catcher Features and Performance Investigation
3. Coupled ATHLET-COCOSYS analysis for a BDBA LOCA DN80
4. ATHLET BDBA analysis Small break DN80 and total loss of power for
24 hours
5. COCOSYS accident analyses for NPP Belene
6. Structure mechanical analyses of the containment behavior
7. Analysis of the resolution of the IAEA Safety Issues for WWER1000/V-320 Nuclear Power Plants for Belene NPP
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Results from the review of TD and
ISAR (Rev. 0)
• Total amount of experts’ report – 1000 pages
• There are no issues that could not be resolved
Classification of the Review 2008-2009
recommendations :
• Class 1 – essential for safety “Must do”
• Class 2 – having an effect on safety “Should do”
• Class 3 – without significant effect on safety “Nice
to have”
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Review and assessment of
the Technical Design
EnproConsult Task: Review and assessment of
chosen design solutions
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Geotechnical issues
Primary circuit
Hermetic construction
Safety related I&C systems (including software)
Control Systems
Systems for management of severe accidents
Reliability of chosen main structures
Analysis of the fire risk and protection measures
Analysis of the measures for ensuing seismic safety
Measures for ensuring radiation protection
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Review and assessment of TD
and ISAR – Rev.2
New contracts with Riskaudit and EnproConsult
signed in May – July 2010
• Task 1: Review and assessment of the Revision 2 of TD
and ISAR
• Task 2: Performance of part 2 of research oriented
activities and generic oriented in-depth studies for
selected safety issues and accident scenarios identified
in the course of TD and ISAR review with a special focus
on the novel passive safety systems
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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Review and Assessment
of the PSA
National TC project supported by the IAEA
Assessment of PSA:
– Preliminary Mission – February 2009
– IPSART Mission for assessment of PSA Rev. 0 - May
2009. Final Report - August 2009
– Follow-up IPSART Mission, PSA Rev. 2
- October 2010. Final Report - February 2011
Importance ranking of findings:
- “HIGH” - “MEDIUM” - “LOW” - “N/A”
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Review and Assessment
of the PSA
Conclusions of the PSA review:
• Large number of findings of the IPSART Mission
has been resolved in the PSA Report Rev.2
• Some of the PSA issues can only be resolved
during the detailed design stage when the
required details will be known and available
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4. Additional analyses and discussions
of selected safety issues
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BNRA internal review of
consultants’ recommendations
High level decision-making group has been
created in the BNRA:
Task: To review and assess all the recommendations
made by the BNRA experts and by the consultants and to
take a decision about their importance for the current
licensing stage - approval of the design
Results: Class 1 recommendations (must be resolved
before approval of the plant design):
• RiskAudit – 83
• EnproConsult – 31
• Total – 114
List of missing Topical reports has been prepared
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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NRA internal review of
consultants’ recommendations
Further analyses and discussions needed:
Novel passive safety systems:
- Molten Core Retention System (“Core catcher”);
- Passive secondary Heat Removal System (PHRS);
- Quick Boron Injection System (QBIS)
- Containment structure and PHRS - airplane crash impact
Dual use of some systems for normal operation
Systems and components classification
Submission of additional Topical reports
Bulatom Annual Forum, Bulgaria, Varna - Riviera, 2-4 June 2011
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EU (ENSREG) “Stress tests”
analysis of Belene NPP
“Stress test”: targeted reassessment of the
safety margins of NPPs
Technical scope:
a) Initiating events: earthquake; flooding;
b) Consequence of loss of safety functions from
any initiating event: loss of electric power, including station
black out; loss of ultimate heat sink; combination of both;
c) Severe accident management issues: loss of core
cooling function; loss of the cooling function of the fuel storage
pool; loss of containment integrity
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EU (ENSREG) “Stress tests”
analysis of Belene NPP
Timeframe:
Progress report
Final report
Llicensee report
August 15, 2011
October 31, 2011
National report
September 15, 2011
December 31, 2011
• The final National report will be subject to a peer review
process
• The EC will present a progress report to the EU Council
for the meeting scheduled on 9th Decenber 2011 and a
consolidated report for the meeting scheduled for June
2012.
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Next licensing steps
Operating License
Commissioning permit
Construction permit
Design approval order
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